Judy Ann Tate Morgan

(b. 24 December 1936)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) has cataloged about 50 vascular plant specimens collected by Judy Ann Tate Morgan.  As we continue to catalog our collections without doubt more specimens collected by Dr. Morgan will be found.  She usually signed her labels as “J. Morgan” or “Judy Ann Tate”.

NCU curates Dr. Morgan’s first collection, Judy Ann Tate #1, Northoscordum bivalve, collected on the grounds of Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, Stanly County, North Carolina in 1959.

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Judy Ann Tate was born on 24 December 1936 in Pomona, Guilford County, North Carolina.  She attended Cool Springs High in Forest City, Rutherford County, North Carolina from 1951 to 1955.  She graduated with an A. B. from Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, Stanly County, North Carolina in 1959.5

On 1 September 1961 Judy Ann Tate married Benjamin Arthur Morgan, III in Rutherford County, North Carolina.1   Benjamin Morgan graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.S. in Geology in 1960 and a M.A. in Geology in 1963.

Under the direction of Dr. A. E. Radford in the Department of Botany she completed her M.A. in 1962 with her thesis “A vascular flora of Morrow Mountain State Park, Stanly County, North Carolina”.2  She collected 1-3 specimens for each taxon found in the Park and mounted them herself.  It is likely that duplicates were exchanged with other herbaria during the 1960’s.4  Those specimens can be found can be found in the collections of Auburn University (AUA), Delta State University (DSC), Institute for Botanical Exploration (IBE), University of Michigan (MICH), and University of South Carolina, Columbia (USCH).3

She continued her studies with Dr. Radford and earned a Ph.D. in 1967.  The title of her doctoral thesis was “A taxonomic study of the genus Boltonia“.2

SOURCES:
1. Ancestry.com. North Carolina, U.S., Marriage Records, 1741-2011 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.  Original data: North Carolina County Registers of Deeds. Microfilm. Record Group 048. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

2.  Kilfoil, Jessica, William R. Burk, and Elizabeth A. Appleton. 2008.  A list of dissertations and gratudate theses in Botany completed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1912-2005.  https://www.lib.unc.edu:9000/biology/theses.html

3.  Data Portal. 2021. http//:sernecportal.org/index.php. Accessed on October 26.

4.  Personal communication, telephone conversation between Morgan and McCormick, 2009.

5.  Personal communication, Niki Wallace, Alumni Records, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, October 29, 2021.